Kentucky and West Virginia haven't met in the regular season since 2008. They haven't met at one of the two schools' campuses since 1992.

On Thursday night, they'll meet in the NCAA Tournament for the third time in six years.

It's odd that it's worked out that way, but perhaps it's also quite predictable at the same time due to the two teams' close proximity, their recent history of close games and head coaches' friendship.

"Cal called me about three weeks ago and said, 'You know they're going to put us in the same bracket don't you?' " West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins said following his team's 69-59 third-round victory over Maryland on Sunday night.

It's not the first time Coach Cal has been correct about potential matchups in the NCAA Tournament. Following the reveal of the NCAA Tournament bracket March 15, Calipari said it's usually a waste of time to look too far ahead in the tournament because the team you think may advance ends up losing.

He did happen to mention one team in particular, though.

"Let me just tell you, West Virginia - Bob Huggins - probably got more out of their team than any team in the country and here they are," Calipari said. "You win a couple of games and you may be facing them."

If recent history is any indicator, Thursday's Midwest Regional semifinal should be one to remember.

The two teams' meeting in 2010 is one all Kentucky fans wish they didn't remember.

UK, the No. 1 seed in the East Regional, met the No. 2 seed West Virginia with a trip to the Final Four on the line. UK went 10 for 20 on two-point field goals in the first half, but 0 for 8 from beyond the arc. Conversely, West Virginia went 8 for 15 from beyond the arc and 0 for 16 on two-point field goals. The 3-point shooting woes continued in the second half for UK as the Cats missed their first 20 3-point attempts in the game and finished just 4 for 32 in a 73-66 loss.

One year later, Kentucky topped West Virginia 71-63 in Tampa, Fla., to advance to the Sweet 16. In that game, West Virginia closed out the first half on a 22-7 run to lead by eight points, but UK scored the first 11 points of the second half and got a career-high 30 from star freshman Brandon Knight, who also sealed the game at the foul line by making six free throws in the final minute.

"We know now they beat us in 2010, we beat them pretty good in 2011," Coach Cal said. "It's always a good game."

Those two meetings will surely be one of the main storylines entering Thursday's Sweet 16 showdown. The other will be Huggins' 8-2 career record versus Calipari, which Huggins said Sunday he can't explain.

"I've got great respect for him and for what he's done and what he's been able to accomplish," Huggins said. "So, like I said, he'll have them ready. He always has them ready."

The Wildcats must be ready for a physical affair in which ball security will be of the utmost importance. West Virginia, which has committed the most fouls in the country, plays an up-and-down style and loves to press the ball, earning it the nickname "Press Virginia." The Mountaineers' adjusted tempo is the 29th fastest in the country, according to KenPom.com, and its turnover and steal percentages are tops nationally.

After playing in the rugged Big 12 Conference, which earned a nation-leading seven bids to the Big Dance, West Virginia said it would not be intimidated Thursday.

"I mean, I wish I could sit here and tell you we're definitely going to win," said Huggins, whose team also owns wins over fellow Sweet 16 teams North Carolina State and Oklahoma. "I can't do that. But I can tell you that we're not going to be scared."

"It's another team," Mountaineers forward Devin Williams said. "They put their drawers on the same way we do. So that's pretty much it. We've just got to prepare, and get our minds right."

Tags:

Karl-Anthony Towns had eight points, seven rebounds and three blocks in UK's win over Cincinnati to advance to the Sweet 16. (Chet White, UK Athletics)

By Lindsay Travis, CoachCal.com

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Willie Cauley-Stein's dunk will be the play fans remember as the one that turned a first-half nail-biter into a double-digit round-of-32 win over Cincinnati.

As big as it was, the players say it was the moment that followed that precipitated the run UK used to take a seven-point lead into halftime.

In fact, they can remember the exact time left on the clock.

"I think our identity was shown, I think, with 2:44 left in the first half," Karl-Anthony Towns said.

"We said it in the huddle when there's 2:44 left in the half, 'We have to push it. We have to push it now,' " Cauley-Stein said.

There was a media timeout immediately after Cauley-Stein's dunk and before he stepped to the line to convert the and-one. In the huddle, the Cats weren't so happy with themselves as they led eighth-seeded Cincinnati by a score of just 25-24.

"We were really upset with ourselves and we just told ourselves we wanted to lock down and we wanted to get all stops and capitalize offensively," Towns said.

UK would do just that, reeling off a 10-point run en route to a 64-51 win to advance past the Bearcats and into the NCAA Tournament's Sweet 16. In the huddle that preceded it, John Calipari wasn't the one delivering the buckle-down message.

"We looked at each other in the huddle and Coach Cal just listened to us talk to each other," Towns said. "We literally came together and we said, 'We need to get stops. We can't let this happen. We can't keep letting this happen.' And we made a goal for ourselves. We didn't want them to score one point for the rest of the half and we did that."

As significant as the huddle was in regards to Saturday's outcome, it was perhaps just as encouraging for UK's prospects of building on their NCAA-record 36-0 start to the season. The Cats seem to be seizing control of their own destiny.

"Coach wants us to be empowered," Trey Lyles said. "Coach wants it to be our team. We're starting to do that now and at the end of the first half we came together as a group. We told each other that we needed to lock down defensively and if we do that defensively then the lead will push. You saw that at the end the half and then the second half we did that as well."

Double the energy

When the moment gets big and the Cats need energy there's one, no, two players the team looks to: the Harrison twins.

"(Aaron) and his brother are kind of the throttle on the team," Willie Cauley-Stein said prior to the Cats' matchup with Cincinnati. "If they're saying they're going to come out playing different, then they're going to come out playing different. In return, everybody's going to come out playing different. They're kind of the fuel to the fire."

Against an unrelenting Bearcats squad, the Harrisons combined for 18 points, 13 for Aaron and five for Andrew. The all-clutch shooting guard went 3 of 7 from deep, while the sophomore point guard had two baskets and a pair of assists in 26 minutes of playing time. Oh, and Andrew Harrison had zero turnovers, his third turnover-free game in a row.

"It's ridiculous how much they both improved," UK head coach John Calipari said. "They're both winning players now. They're both winning players. They both are not afraid to make game-winning shots because they're not afraid to miss game-winning shots. They'll make free throws. They're both defending better."

Aaron Harrison picked up a rare technical against the Bearcats that helped energize the team. Maybe not as much as Willie Cauley-Stein's poster-worthy dunk, but it helped get the Cats going.

"Yeah, anytime some stuff like that happens, it doesn't matter who, you're going to automatically be juiced," Cauley-Stein said. "Anytime somebody is talking trash to you you're going to go back at them."

After missing both attempted 3s against Hampton and scoring his only three points from the free-throw line, Aaron Harrison found his way out of a shooting slump Saturday.

"Aaron can do other things like get to the rim, so once he hit some layups and stuff like that the goal opens up for him," Andrew Harrison said.

On a team packed to the rafters with talent, Coach Cal thinks the twins don't get enough credit for what they do and what they did last season.

"They carried us to the final game last year, those two," Calipari said. "You watch the tapes. Those two carried us to where we were. Struggled a little bit in the final game. We never would have gotten into the final game without those two. Now they're starting to do the same thing again. It says something about who they are as players in their heart to win and their will to win."

Booker not worried about shooting slump

So far in the 2015 NCAA Tournament, Devin Booker has not reloaded a 3 one single time. He's attempted seven shots and they've hit every part of the rim, but none have fallen.

You would think the normally hot-handed freshman would be worried that his shot hasn't found its way in. But you'd be incorrect.

"It's nothing new to me, but like I said, I've stressed it, that's the least of my concerns right now as long as my team is winning," Booker said. "If we're finding other ways to win, that's definitely fine with me."

The shots may not be falling right now, but Coach Cal wants the freshman to keep shooting.

"We told him after the game, hey, you've got to keep shooting because there's going to be a game we need him to make shots or we can't win," Calipari said. "It just didn't happen to be this one or the first one. You can miss all these ones. It doesn't matter. The next one's coming up, we may need you to make some shots."

Booker didn't go scoreless vs. Cincinnati. His 3s weren't falling but his 2s were and the freshman shooting guard found other ways to produce for his team, such as driving to the basket.

"If my shot is not falling I try to assert myself in different ways, whether that's defending, rebounding, or like you said, attacking the rim," Booker said. "That's what I did today in transition. It kind of opened up a few times for me and I took advantage of it."

In addition to his six points, the Southeastern Conference Sixth Man of the Year had four rebounds in 22 minutes of play. And post-Cincinnati, he feels like his shot will come soon.

"I think it's going in," Booker said. "It feels good. I actually don't know what it is, but I'm going to keep shooting and I feel like we're going to be all right.

"I don't know if it's a good thing I'm not on fire, but like I said, it's going to come along. I know it is. My team trusts me, the whole coaching staff trusts me."

With 2:46 remaining in the first half of Kentucky's 64-51 third-round victory over Cincinnati, Cauley-Stein took a pass from Tyler Ulis and took flight from the left side of the lane, throwing down one of the biggest and baddest dunks of the college basketball season, and certainly the still young NCAA Tournament.

"I feel like I might have turned into Superman on that, but I'm just Clark Kent, you know what I'm saying?" Cauley-Stein said. "I just went into a little phone booth and turned into Superman real quick."

Unfortunately for Cincinnati (23-11), there was no kryptonite to be found.

After trailing for 7:42 of the opening 17:14, UK never trailed again following the junior forward's dunk that put UK up 25-24.

After the game, many wondered, where does this dunk rank in the ever-growing collection of Cauley-Stein posters?

"It might be worse than the dude from Florida," Cauley-Stein said. "I mean, I don't think they put the kid back in the game. It was nasty."

Whether it was his best dunk or not is a matter of preference, but it did share a number of similarities to that of his poster over Florida's Devin Robinson.

Aside from both posters occurring on the left side of the lane and with Cauley-Stein already having picked up a head of steam, they both came against 6-foot-8 freshmen. Perhaps the naivety of youth played a role in contesting the dunk.

"We don't know why people jump when he's already in the air," Trey Lyles said. "It's pretty much over after that. So if you jump after that there's something wrong with you."

Second, and of much more importance to the Cats, both dunks gave Kentucky the lead for good in what had otherwise been back-and-forth, tight games. Against Florida, it was the ensuing free throw after the dunk that gave Kentucky a 45-44 lead with 12:09 to play in the game. On Saturday, Cauley-Stein's dunk pushed the Cats ahead 25-24. Both times the dunk fueled UK.

"That's why I think Coach harps on just dunking it all the time because it just gives everybody so much juice," Cauley-Stein said. "It gets the crowd going, especially something like that. It was crazy."

It also helps push Kentucky defensively, something it does better than any other team in the country.

"It got us all going, got us a little hyped, got Willie going a little bit," Lyles said. "Defensively, like I said, we started to lock down at the end of the half."

Cauley-Stein's three-point play was part of a 10-0 run for Kentucky to close out the half and turn a once five-point deficit into a seven-point halftime lead, giving the Cats momentum, and confidence to know their defense is capable of shutting the Bearcats out.

"We said it in the huddle when there's 2:44 left in the half, 'We have to push it. We have to push it now,' and we succeeded at it," Cauley-Stein said "Anytime you can execute what you're thinking is good."

Fresh off a 21-point, 11-rebound performance against Hampton, Karl-Anthony Towns had another strong game against Cincinnati, scoring eight points, grabbing seven rebounds and blocking three shots, but it wasn't just Towns who played well against the Bearcats. It was a balanced, team effort, with no one player shining well over another.

"Every game I'm not going to go for 21," Towns said. "They're not going to just let me go for 21, but that's the beauty of this team. My brothers, everyone's so talented that it doesn't matter if you get eight. But if you get eight, he gets 10, he gets eight, he gets eight, he gets 10, it adds up to be a lot of points."

There was Lyles, who posted his second double-double of the year with 11 points and a career-high 11 rebounds. Ulis scored nine points, dished out five assists and didn't commit a turnover. Not to be forgotten, Aaron Harrison scored a team-high 13 points, and his brother finished with five points, two assists, no turnovers and one of the biggest baskets in the game: a tough layup while getting fouled midway through the second half. Cauley-Stein scored nine points, blocked two shots and played suffocating defense.

In all, Kentucky had five players score at least eight points, but nobody register more than 13. The Cats were outrebounded by seven, outscored in the paint by two and shot just 37 percent from the field, their lowest percentage since shooting 28.1 percent on Jan. 10 in a double-overtime victory at Texas A&M, but still won by 13.

"I always like it when my team shoots 37, 36, 35 percent and wins in double digits," UK head coach John Calipari said. "It shows them they don't have to make shots to win.

"The good news is there's enough guys that, if two or three aren't playing well, we can still survive. What they learned today is we don't have to shoot the ball well, and we can still survive. You just want them going into every game saying, it doesn't matter what happens. We can still win. And that's the mentality I want them in."

It also doesn't hurt to have a guy who can dunk a player out of a game.

"I didn't even see it," Andrew Harrison said. "I didn't get to see it, I was talking to somebody on the side of me. I just saw everybody standing up and I saw a dude went down on the ground. 'Not this again.' "

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Cincinnati looked for a moment to have Kentucky rattled.

After tempers flared early in the second half, Aaron Harrison was whistled for a technical foul for bumping into the Bearcats' Octavius Ellis. Officials went to the monitor to check the play and John Calipari shouted at the normally cold-blooded sophomore, "What did you do?"

Cincinnati capitalized on the exchange and cut UK's lead to three points. The unbeaten season and bid for a ninth championship seemed in jeopardy.

Then Kentucky happened.

"Everybody I think just locked in defensively," Trey Lyles said.

Over the next 15-plus minutes, the top-seeded Cats outscored Cincinnati 31-15 to build an insurmountable lead. The Bearcats hit just 6 of 29 from the field during the stretch and UK (36-0) clinched a Sweet 16 berth with a 64-51 victory in spite of shooting just 37 percent from the field.

Harrison was UK's top offensive threat, scoring 13 points. He buried three 3-pointers, including a crucial one with 11:54 left that gave UK an eight-point lead.

From that point on, UK's lead would never dip below seven and grew to as large as 19, though the Bearcats battled until the buzzer.

"I thought Cincinnati played well," Calipari said. "They didn't back away. They came right at us. I always like it when my team shoots 37, 36, 35 percent and wins in double digits. It shows them they don't have to make shots to win. You can miss them all. No, you can't miss them all. You can miss most of them, and you can still win games if you defend, you rebound and you play that way, make your free throws, and they did."

UK would have to make its free throws in this one, as Cincinnati took a physical approach to trying to take down No. 1. The Cats went to the line 28 times and made 20, absorbing 22 Bearcat fouls, including one that triggered the technical.

Lyles, who had his second-career double-double with 11 points and 11 rebounds, drove the lane and was fouled hard by Shaq Thomas. As the teams assembled at the foul line, there was some light jawing. Ellis, who battled Lyles all day and was booed regularly by Kentucky fans among the 21,760 in attendance at the KFC Yum! Center, was in the middle of it and eventually was bumped by Harrison for the technical call.

"He was just trying to be physical and stuff like that, but nobody let that get to them," Lyles said. "Kudos to him for going hard, but we were going at them hard too."

And even harder after the technical.

"Anytime some stuff like that happens, it doesn't matter who, you're going to automatically be juiced," said Willie Cauley-Stein, who had another of his poster-worthy dunks to key a game-turning first-half run. "Anytime somebody is talking trash to you you're going to go back at them."

Undeterred by yet another grind-it-out game and the back-and-forth that came with it, the Cats stayed alive and marched into the Sweet 16. In spite of being outrebounded for just the seventh time all season and the second time in the last 14 games, UK answered the bell.

"That was what everybody thought that to beat us you have to play more physical," Cauley-Stain said. "We're a physical team. We're all big and fast and strong. It's not like pushing us in the back on a rebound - we might not get it that time, but we know next time, OK, go ahead and push me in the back or anything, pushing and shoving. I don't know, it doesn't really bother me."

Nonetheless, the Cincinnati game still inspired talk that the game plan the Bearcats used might be the one a more dynamic offensive team could use to take down UK. Harrison isn't overly concerned.

"You gotta do what you gotta do, but I think we're a physical team as well," Harrison said. "Teams have tried to be physical with us all year and I think we're one of the more physical teams in the country and we can match anybody's intensity or aggressiveness or anything."

For a few brief moments, the Cats were able to celebrate what they did to advance past Cincinnati. It doing so, UK became the first team in NCAA history to start 36-0, besting the record set by the Wichita State team that saw its season ended a year ago in the round of 32 by Kentucky.

Still, the Cats were ready to move on quickly to thoughts of the Midwest Regional.

"We're not done yet," Lyles said. "It's a good accolade to have, but we have another game coming up on Thursday that we have to get ready for."

Tags:

UK will face Cincinnati on Saturday after beating Hampton in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. (Chet White, UK Athletics)

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Fourteen words. That's all it took for Aaron Harrison to get his point across. They were simple words, nothing poetic, nothing to make you look deeper into their meaning. But they were powerful and they proved to be prophetic.

"We know what we can do and it's going to be a great story," he said.

At the time, the words fell on many a deaf ear. The Cats had dropped to 21-8 after losing at South Carolina and a once-promising 2013-14 season was looking more and more disappointing.

What followed, of course, was a trip to the national championship game. As for Harrison, he did his part, hitting two of the biggest shots in UK's illustrious postseason history, vaulting the Cats over Michigan and then Wisconsin on game-winning 3-pointers from the wing.

So why are those 14 words being brought up again now over one year later and with the Cats standing tall at 35-0? Well, because Harrison may be on to something again.

After a ho-hum 23-point opening game victory over 16th-seeded Hampton on Thursday, Harrison wasn't happy. The only one of UK's active rotation of players without a field goal, the second team All-Southeastern Conference selection said UK's next game Saturday against Cincinnati (23-10) would be different.

"I think everyone will see a different team on Saturday, definitely," he said.

Uh oh.

The reason behind Harrison's words is he didn't think the Cats played with much intensity against Hampton. He wasn't the only one though.

"We did some good things, we did some bad things," Willie Cauley-Stein said.

"We kinda came out sluggish and we gotta come out of the gate better than that with what we did (Thursday)," Dakari Johnson said.

"Came out a little sluggish at the beginning," Trey Lyles said.

Aaron Harrison wasn't the only one who vowed a change on Saturday though. His twin brother, Andrew, joined in this time.

As it has been written before, in March, the Harrison twins tend to step their games up to new heights. While Aaron Harrison had an uncharacteristically off night against Hampton, Andrew rebounded from a tough first half with a strong second half. In the final 20 minutes, Andrew Harrison went 3 for 3 from the field, scored seven points, grabbed three rebounds, dished out two assists and had a steal.

So does it carry a bit more weight when it's Aaron Harrison who makes a statement about what the team is going to do?

"Yeah, especially if he's saying it," Cauley-Stein said. "Him and his brother are kind of the throttle on the team. If they're saying they're going to come out playing different, then they're going to come out playing different. In return, everybody's going to come out playing different. They're kind of the fuel to the fire."

Whether it comes to fruition or not is still to be seen, but it appears there's a hearty amount of fuel in the tank for Saturday's third-round matchup between two schools just 85 miles apart. While they haven't played since 2005, the proximity of the schools coupled with the David vs. Goliath theme that nearly every team will use when playing undefeated Kentucky, makes UK head coach John Calipari believe the Bearcats will be more than ready.

"They've got a chance to beat the No. 1 team in the country," Coach Cal said. "They've got a chance. They're next up on the docket. I would imagine they're dreaming about it, thinking about it, having people in the stands. Make sure you take video of this because I want my grandkids to see it. And I don't blame them. ... It should be a great game. It should be a war."

Which makes the attitude and confidence held by the Harrisons one that Calipari welcomes from his team. This time of year, Coach Cal says, is time for him to love his team, but not a time for him to drag his team. Instead, he wants his team to become more empowered, and to take more ownership in how everything goes and is carried.

"It's their team," Calipari said. "They know it's not my team."

And the longer this season goes, the more Coach Cal wants that empowerment to grow, and the players do as well. The end result, well, that could make opponents say "uh oh."

"Later in the season we go I feel like we're all going to need each other the most," freshman guard Devin Booker said. "We know that. We're coming together even closer toward the end of the year and I feel like it's going to be dangerous."

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Teams have run with Kentucky. Teams have tried to punch the Wildcats in the mouth.

Some have sunk into zone defenses and challenged the Cats to hit from the outside. Some have gone with full-court pressure against UK.

For what seems like every one of the Cats' wins, opponents have gone with a different approach to hand them their first loss.

"They gotta run out eventually," Willie Cauley-Stein said. "They try everything. You got to though. You can't get mad at it. I would do the same thing."

Of course, none of it's worked.

Top-seeded UK has charged through 35 games without a loss to tie the best start to a season in NCAA history. The Cats will look to take over the record on their own when they face eighth-seeded Cincinnati (23-10) at approximately 2:40 p.m. on Saturday at the KFC Yum! Center.

When they do, they'll take on an opponent they expect to try a familiar game plan.

"We just know that they're going to play extremely hard and try to bully us," Cauley-Stein said. "They play that zone. That's really all we've looked at so far. We'll know more about probably an hour."

Cauley-Stein would have to wait an hour because the Cats had yet to spend much time preparing for the Bearcats as of Friday afternoon. The final buzzer didn't sound on their second-round NCAA Tournament win over Hampton until well after midnight and the team bus didn't pull into the hotel until close to 3 a.m.

But that would change at UK's practice later in the day, when John Calipari would reinforce the message about what to expect from Cincinnati.

"The stuff that has affected us, real physical play, stretching our big guys out, playing a zone and doing stuff, that's all what Cincinnati does," Calipari said. "We know we're in for a tough game. They fought all year and deserve to be in a position they're in. A great win. It's going to be a really hard game for us."

The great win Coach Cal referenced was a 66-65 overtime triumph against Purdue. In the game, the Bearcats trailed by seven with less than a minute to play before charging back and forcing the extra session on a buzzer-beating layup by Troy Caupain.

The victory sets up a showdown between two schools separated by barely 80 miles. There are fans of both schools on either side of the Kentucky-Ohio border, a fact that does not escape the Bearcats.

"Being that they are really close to us, we see the things fans and all the blue," sophomore forward Gary Clark said. "We go over to Kentucky to the movie theater, and there's dinner and restaurants. So we see the fans all the time."

In fact, their coach used to be one of them.

Growing up in Mount Sterling, Ky., Larry Davis - serving as interim coach with head coach Mick Cronin out for the season with an unruptured aneurysm - listened to UK games on the radio with his father before attending Asbury College.

"I had some friends there in college whose father had some tickets, and any chance we could, we followed the national championship team with (Jack) Goose Givens and those guys," Davis said. "So I've always had a lot of respect for Kentucky basketball."

For the Cats, the proximity adds a little something extra, though playing for the right to continue their season is motivation enough.

"This has a little more pride on the line," Karl-Anthony Towns said. "It's around the hometown. You gotta protect home at all costs, so like I said, we're going to go out there and play to the best of our abilities for that night and just see how it falls."

Towns expects the same of Cincinnati.

"They're going to be playing like it's their Super Bowl," Towns said. "But not only is it going to be their Super Bowl, it's going to be their Super Bowl, their NBA Finals, their Stanley Cup Finals. I mean, everything together is coming here and we're just playing the game."